


What is Dean Winchester's Type?

by ceirdwenfc



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Meta, Other, Sexuality, dean's type
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 10:38:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceirdwenfc/pseuds/ceirdwenfc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What is Dean's type for a romantic partner?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What is Dean Winchester's Type?

I've seen a couple of things here that talk about Dean's _type_ and how he is so obviously gay or bisexual because he didn't sleep with Ellie and that he was kind of misogynistic in his dealings with Portia. I've already talked about some of the specifics with them in previous metas, so I'd like to delve a little into the type of person Dean's attracted to. Leaving out the bisexuality controversy, whether he is closeted or not, for the past seven seasons, we've been shown a Dean who is _outwardly_ heterosexual. He doesn't hide that he likes women; that he likes women a lot, in fact.

Essentially in every encounter we've seen up until season 8 they have all been extremely attractive women. Any men who've hit on Dean have been pretty thoroughly shut down. He is always surprised when he and Sam are mistaken for a couple, and it seems to bother him a little. That could be a little homophobia, but it's more than likely, 'eww, that's my brother.' I'm not sure that 'why does everyone think we're gay?' equates to how could I be perceived as gay?

Whether or not Dean is bisexual and in the closet is irrelevant to this discussion. We've never seen him interested in a guy except for his feelings for Castiel. I know that some people have looked at his interactions with Aaron, but I think that he was flustered in the bar because he was taken aback. I've said before that he expected a confrontation with Aaron who had been following him, and when he went over in full FBI persona, and was then hit with a pick up line, which he didn't expect, it flustered him. At Aaron's house, he seemed a little disappointed, but I think that was more ego – how can you not find me attractive rather than wanting Aaron to be interested in him, and he wasn't interested in Aaron that way.

Some of the other instances of what some fans would call flirting (and my memory doesn't work well enough to give you specific examples) is simply Dean's snark and defense mechanisms kicking in for some of those intense life or death moments, like with Lucifer and Zachariah.

The question arises, though – does Dean Winchester have a type?

My opinion is a very simple and very emphatic, No.

It could be who they give Dean to be with or it could be the CW network and its demographic, but all the women are hotter than average, and is it me or does every woman (except Meg 1.0) have long hair? Sorry, I'm getting off track.

Dean is not partial to any particular woman; he's partial to _all_ women. You can't say that he likes caramel colored skin, or dark skin, or pale skin with freckles. He's not into blondes any more than he's into brunettes or redheads. Tall or short, it doesn't matter. We have no real data on if he prefers his women on the slender side, but we certainly never see him eyeing more plus sized women. Age is usually around his age, but I'm not sure it matters to him. As I recall, he was attracted to Ellie, Dr. Visyak, the medieval studies professor (who turned out to be an ancient being from Purgatory); the youngest woman, I think was Jo.

There are three factors that go into whether or not you've got a chance with Dean Winchester and they are in no particular order:

  1. Boobs
  2. Ass
  3. Not a Supernatural Being



And that's it.

You can argue with me and try to give it more depth than that, but it doesn't matter if they're a student (above the age of consent and in high school that would be questionable), doctor, lawyer, bartender, waitress, investment banker, retail clerk, cashier. It just doesn't matter.

It can't even be said that he's more attracted to damsels in distress. I would have thought that – that he's more attracted to women who need him; who he can help; who he can be the big, strong man for, but if you look at the women that we've seen:

Lisa – yoga instructor, single mother, independent

Ellie – strong, independent, ranch manager

Anna – a fucking Angel, Warrior of the Lord

Jo – he meets her when she puts a rifle in his back and punches him in the nose

The Amazon – he didn't know she was an Amazon

The woman in the bar who wanted him to see her breasts (You Can't Handle the Truth, 6.06) – he was looking anyway

Casey (bartender in Sin City, 3.04)

The woman in Monster Movie, 4.05

Mrs. Linda Tran – remember in Trial and Error, 8.14, he's telling Kevin, who couldn't hear him over the headphones that he thought his mom was hot, and he started to elaborate on those thoughts when Sam came back

 

I know there were a couple of one night stands that we didn't really see and the two girls in high school, and I'm sure many others that we, as viewers weren't shown. As viewers we're certainly given the indication through the show that he is a ladies' man even if we don't meet every one of the women he's been with.

The point is that Portia being female was enough to make her Dean's type and the only reason he didn't hit on her was he was put off by the shape shifting nature of her being a familiar and once he knew that she and James were in a sexual relationship, we've seen enough of Dean to know that he wouldn't get in the middle of that. I've never seen him hit on anyone in a relationship and I wouldn't expect him to.

There is also much made about his and Sam's comments about her being hot when she was reading Dean the riot act near the beginning. I'm not sure that was misogynistic on his part. She was putting him in his place for his prejudice and he was distracted by her being so close, whether that was how she smelled or just the look of her body, and he needed to say something. This is where he would be snarky, and he was. He wouldn't have agreed with her that he'd been an ass even if he knew that he had; that's not in his nature.

Sam wasn't necessarily agreeing with him that she was hot, at least not verbally like that. Portia looked at Sam as if to say, 'are you kidding me,' and Sam responded to her by shrugging and telling her basically, well, you might not think so, but yeah, that was actually kind of hot.

I also don't think that Dean is misogynistic. Wanting to protect women as part of his nature is not the same thing as thinking that they can't protect themselves. If you watch the dynamic between him and Jo, he wanted to protect her for whatever reasons are in his head. His instinct is to protect her; that's his job. I mean, come on, he's still protecting a 6'4", 250 lb. man in the same way. His second guessing of Jo isn't because he doesn’t think she's capable – part of it is her mother being the elephant in the room and it's his job to protect the civilians. Once she proves she's not a civilian, he doesn’t act that kind of protective towards her anymore, but he acts the same way towards men also and I think that this is separate from the effemephobia that Andythanfiction talks about.

This is supposed to be about Dean's type. I'll repeat: He doesn’t have a type. Up until season 8, his type was strictly women. In season 8, his personality has changed a bit. He's a much different man than the one we met in season 1.

Aaron flustered him a little. He's friends with a vampire. His friendship with Benny might be simply that he owes him for helping him out of Purgatory. I've seen some references to an attraction between them, but I don't see anything romantic there. He more readily (although not always) admits when he's wrong. He let Kate go. He's very protective of Kevin. I think that Kevin is perhaps taking something of a place in his psyche that Lisa and Ben held.

Purgatory changed him in a way that Hell never did. I've written about this, so I don't want to be redundant, but one of those changes was Dean's sexuality. His drinking is actually down to healthy levels, his sex drive might be a little low, but more than the sex, the attitude has changed. He's not chasing everything in a skirt. He's also not chasing men. I don't believe that his time in Purgatory changed his sexual orientation, but I do think that the time there set his hang-ups free – all the lovely baggage he got from his father and other Hunters he might have met throughout the years, and he left it all back in Purgatory. Being attracted to Castiel, loving Castiel – it's not the worst thing that could happen to a man; to this man. He's already lived through the worst things.

My type might be a tall, redhead with facial hair, but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't be attracted to, or even fall in love with a shorter, dark-haired, clean-shaven person. I also think that for a bisexual, it might be a little harder to pinpoint a type. And I'm not even saying that Dean _is_ bisexual.

So where does that leave us with Dean's type?

I believe that Dean's type is the same as it was before.

Boobs.

Ass.

Not a Supernatural being.

Even as a Destiel shipper, I'm well aware that Castiel isn't Dean's type. That's what's so great about their story and the hope that TPTB will follow through on their relationship. It just grew organically. They were adversaries – very, very briefly, then on the same team, though without the trust, and then the admiration followed. And then the love, and if you watch them, it is very clear that love is part of their bond. Their way with each other in caring for the other, taking the other's feelings, a way of talking to the other one, looks that pass between them, speaking through body language, and so many other things that are between them.

According to the other Angels, something happened to Castiel when he first laid a hand on Dean and that might be, but every time that Dean hears that he looks slightly confused because that experience didn't change Dean the same way that it changed Castiel. That didn't influence Dean's feelings, his emotions, or a change in his type.

When I hear someone saying that Portia was Dean's type, I think, yup, she's a woman.

 


End file.
